curb

Etymology

Barnhart and the American Heritage Dictionary treat it as a fusion of two related words, both from the Latin family of curve.^[2][3] The strap for a horse, inherited from Middle English corbe (1477), seems to have been formed in English on the verb courben (“to bend, bow”) (recorded about 1378),^[2][4][5] which is borrowed from Old French courber, corber,^[4][2][3] from Latin curvō (“to bend”), from curvus (“bent, curved”);^[2][6][7] the OED explains it as the thing that "curbs" or bends the horse's neck.^[4][8] The second word, a curved piece of timber (1324), is from courbe, corbe (“curved object”), a noun use of the French adjective that continues curvus.^[2][3][4] Etymonline instead derives the strap directly from the French noun courbe, recorded in the 12th century,^[9] and traces curvus to Proto-Indo-European *(s)ker- (“to turn, bend”).^[9][3] The spelling kerb is a variant of the noun recorded from the 1660s.^[9][10]

Earliest recorded meaning

A chain or strap passing under a horse's lower jaw and fastened to the bit, used to check the animal: 1477, in Earl Rivers's Dictes or Sayengis of the Philosophres.^[4][2] Etymonline dates it to the late 15th century, and notes that the word was used in Anglo-Latin for a curved or arched piece of timber in the late 13th century.^[9]

Semantic evolution

From the horse's curb the word passed, from 1613, to anything that restrains, a check;^[4][2][9] the verb followed the same path, from putting a curb on a horse (1530, in Palsgrave) to restraining in general (1588).^[4][9] Johnson (1755) defined the noun as the iron chain of a bridle and, figuratively, restraint or opposition.^[11] The other branch kept the idea of a curve: a hard swelling on a horse's leg (?1523), a curve or arc (1601, obsolete), and, from 1511, the frame round the top of a well, an enclosing border that was at first curved but was later applied to straight edges as well.^[4][9][10] Etymonline dates the border of a garden bed to 1731, and the edging of upright stones between the footway and the road to 1791.^[9] In that last sense the British spelling became kerb (1805), while American English kept curb.^[9][4][12] In Elizabethan thieves' cant a curb was a hooked pole for stealing goods through windows (1591, in Robert Greene),^[13][4] and to curb was to steal in this way.^[13] The verb meaning simply to bend or bow, a variant of courbe, is found from Langland's Piers Plowman (1377) and lasted into the early 19th century.^[4][14]

Timeline

• 1324 – a curved piece of timber.^[2]
• 1377 – verb, to bend or bow (obsolete).^[4]
• 1477 – a chain or strap under a horse's jaw.^[4][2]
• 1511 – the frame round the top of a well.^[4][2]
• ?1523 – a hard swelling on a horse's leg.^[4]
• 1530 – verb, to put a curb on a horse.^[4][7]
• 1588 – verb, to restrain or keep in check.^[4]
• 1591 – (thieves' cant) a hooked pole for stealing.^[4][13]
• 1613 – a check or restraint.^[4][2]
• 1791 – the stone edging of a footway.^[9]
• 1836 – verb, to furnish with a curb.^[4]
• 1867 – (telegraphy) a method of signalling through a long cable.^[4]

Modern meaning

Noun

1. Something that restrains or limits: The council voted for new curbs on parking.
2. (chiefly North American) The raised edge of a pavement or sidewalk, where it meets the road (British kerb).
3. An enclosing frame or border, such as the stone wall round the top of a well.
4. A bit with a chain or strap that passes under a horse's jaw and is used to check it; the chain or strap itself.
5. A hard swelling on the back of a horse's hind leg below the hock, usually from a sprain.

Verb

1. To keep something in check; to restrain or limit it: She curbed her impatience and waited.
2. To control a horse with a curb.
3. To furnish a street with a curb.

Word family

• curbless
• curblike
• curbside
• curbstone

Related words

• curvature
• curve
• curvy
• kerb
• crown

Usage notes

Collins gives kerb as the usual British spelling for the edge of a pavement and curb as the American and Canadian one; the OED notes that kerb is established in British use only in that sense.^[12][4] In dialect, the English Dialect Dictionary records curb for a curve in west Somerset and, in Cheshire mining, for the wooden segments fixed round a shaft on which the brickwork was raised.^[15]

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
3. ^ a b c d The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
5. ^ Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
6. ^ Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
7. ^ a b Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
8. ^ Cresswell, Julia (2021), Oxford Dictionary of Word Origins, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
9. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
10. ^ a b Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
11. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
12. ^ a b Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
13. ^ a b c Green, Jonathon (2010), Green's Dictionary of Slang, London: Chambers; digital ed. 2016–, https://greensdictofslang.com
14. ^ Kay, Christian; Roberts, Jane; Samuels, Michael; Wotherspoon, Irené, eds. (2009), Historical Thesaurus of the Oxford English Dictionary, Oxford: Oxford University Press; online edition (2024)
15. ^ Wright, Joseph, ed. (1898–1905), The English Dialect Dictionary, 6 vols., Oxford: Henry Frowde; via EDD Online 4.0, University of Innsbruck (CC BY 4.0)